Forever and Always Read online

When she smiled I knew I was making headway. Even better, I had an audience. “So I’ll just go there by myself and ask questions and probably get myself killed, since everyone else has. And that will be the end of Paul Travis.”

  She looked at me with twinkling eyes and said, “If he gets killed do you think we’ll get to see his apartment?”

  I laughed with her. She wasn’t easily made to feel guilty, that’s for sure. “Darci, the truth is that without you I can do nothing. Can you tell what will happen to my child if he isn’t found?”

  I didn’t have to be psychic to read what was on her face. “He’ll die, won’t he?”

  “No,” she said. “The mother will but not the child. There’s something about him…I don’t know what it is.”

  “Maybe he’s like you and someone wants to use him for nefarious purposes.” When I saw Darci’s too-pale face turn even whiter, I knew she was withholding information from me. “Spill it,” I said. “Out with it.”

  She drained her glass, then held it out for me to refill. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I don’t have the time.”

  At that I pointedly looked around the empty house. No husband, no kids, no employees, no job. What the hell did she do all day?

  “You don’t understand,” she said, running her fingertips around the edge of the wineglass. “I feel things all the time. Everywhere. But there’s one of me and thousands, even millions, of them.”

  “Them,” I said.

  “Yes, them. Evil people. No, not evil, that’s different. Greedy people, dishonest people. There are scams going on all over the world. I can’t go to parties with strangers because I become aware that the man by the piano is thinking about killing his wife, or the woman in the kitchen is stealing from her employer, or I’ll feel that the two children playing by the pool will be dead within a year.

  “I can’t change things…. I mean, I can change somethings but not enough to make a dent in the horror that’s in this world.”

  “So you isolate yourself in this house and do nothing.”

  “Not quite,” she said, and I knew she was trying to make me think she worked on projects all day long. Probably did. Probably worked on getting her husband back and nothing else.

  “You’ve been working on him for over a year. Think six more weeks will find him?” I was pleased to see her look shocked. Maybe I couldn’t read minds but an actor learned to read expressions, and I’d read hers perfectly.

  “Not possible,” she said as she put her glass down.

  “Not possible to do what?” I asked, putting on my innocent act.

  She took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. You go to wherever this woman was killed, find out all you can, bring the information back to me, and I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. “Two people are dead already but I’ll be safe. I’ll just ask about the kid and they’ll give me information and snapshots.”

  She sipped her wine for a moment and seemed to think about what I was asking her to do. “Where did the woman last work?”

  “A resort,” I said quickly—too quickly—and made myself slow down. “It’s an old…farm of sorts. Outbuildings. A couple of old-maid sisters own the place and have turned it into a sort of resort. Women go there for massages and whatever.”

  When she started looking at me hard, I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

  “Read my mind,” I said and when she said, “Can’t,” I didn’t believe her. I got up, went to the foyer and fished inside my jacket for the brochure, then went back into the living room and handed it to her.

  She looked at it for a few moments and I could see her eyes widen in disbelief before she looked back up at me. “It’s a plantation named 13 Elms, in Alabama, complete with the slave cabins remodeled into guest houses. It’s owned by two women who are the descendants of the original owners and it’s—” She opened her eyes so wide I thought they were going to pop. “Among other things available to their guests, they conduct séances.”

  I gave her the grin Paul Travis uses when he’s trying to get information out of women. It’s meant to disarm them and to make them think Travis is a nice guy. The look didn’t work with Darci. I nodded at the brochure and said,“What else do you feel?”

  “They’re up to something. It’s not evil but it’s dishonest, completely illegal, and they’re getting rich off of it. And, yes, a murder or two may have been committed.”

  “At least it’s not evil,” I said, and Darci smiled.

  She quit smiling and said, “You do not want to go there.”

  “Great,” I said and acted like I was about to leave. “You go, find my son, and let me know when you have him.”

  “Very funny,” she said. “You know, I’m hungry. You want something to eat?”

  “We just ate a huge meal.”

  “Yeah, but—Come on and I’ll bake you some Jell-O.”

  She could see I didn’t get what she meant—was it a joke?—but I followed her anyway, then sat and watched as she made herself an enormous sandwich. If she could bottle her ability to eat and not gain weight she’d be worshiped in Hollywood. I knew women who’d eat bear dung, or inject it into their veins, if they thought it would make them lose five pounds.

  “We need to figure out how we’re going to go about this,” she said, her mouth full.

  “Does this mean you’re agreeing to do it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking about it. Maybe—”

  She stopped talking because the telephone rang and, instantly, she went running into another room to get it. I could hear her quick footsteps going deep into the house, probably into a bedroom where she’d have some privacy.

  I was on the opposite side of the bar from the telephone but could see that the light on line four was on. Was that the super-private line? Slowly, I went around the bar and began to tidy up the countertop. Oops, I dropped one of those heavy kitchen knives on the telephone and when I picked it up, my hand accidently hit a couple of buttons. When a man’s voice came through on the speaker phone, I thought that someone ought to talk to Darci about phone systems that didn’t allow other people to eavesdrop.

  “Turkey,” I heard a man say. “I’m in Turkey, but I’ve found nothing.”

  “You have,” Darci said,“and stop testing me.”

  The man chuckled. “That’s my baby. Yes, I found that big embroidered bag of Bo’s.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Darci said. “Where? Tell me everything.”

  “You told me you felt something was in a shop in this area and it was. It was in an antiques shop. The thing was so worn and battered it looked like it was an antique.”

  “Where did he get it?”

  “It cost me three hundred dollars to get answers and I’m still not sure he was telling the truth. He says some old man sold it to him with a load of things, old clothes, old household goods and—”

  “Old mirrors,” Darci said.

  “Yeah. An old mirror. Cracked frame and so faded you couldn’t see yourself in it. He didn’t take the mirror. Said it was rubbish.”

  “Have you found the man who sold him the things?”

  “Not yet. I thought you—”

  “He’s gone, Dad. I can feel that he’s gone. He doesn’t live in Turkey and the man has gone home. His old wife is ill. Egypt. Pyramids. I see pyramids.”

  “Okay, honey. I’ll get on the first plane out of here. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah,” Darci said hesitantly.

  “What’s wrong? Other than what’s wrong, that is?”

  “There’s a man here, Dad. He’s an actor and my mother sent him to me. She wants me to help him find his missing son.”

  “An actor with a missing child would bring you a lot of publicity.”

  “No, it’s not like that. It would take too long to explain but people don’t know about the child and…” She trailed off.

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